This formless drama featuring Elliot Page as a trans man returning home relies on improvised dialogue.
The title of the diffuse drama “Close to You” refers to a sweet nothing murmured between old friends on a wintry Canadian lakeshore. Sam (Elliot Page), visiting his hometown for his father’s birthday, takes a walk with his former confidante, Katherine (a stirring Hillary Baack). Katherine expresses that she is glad to be in Sam’s proximity after nearly two decades. He confesses that he was once in love with her.
The director, Dominic Savage, draws out the quiet re-establishment of Sam and Katherine’s bond by lingering on charged gazes and dimpled grins. But if their affection is the story’s heart, its exoskeleton is Sam’s turbulent re-immersion into his family, who have not seen him since his transition.
Back in his childhood home, Sam fields clumsy overtures of love and support from his parents and grown siblings in a series of one-on-one encounters. It’s here that the film demonstrates its greatest asset: a nuanced understanding of the way queer people are often obliged to allay the anxieties, contrition and discomfiture of their loved ones rather than vice versa.
But as attentive as “Close to You” is to family dynamics, its dialogue, which the actors largely improvised, rarely achieves verisimilitude. The problem is most apparent in group scenes, where the jabber feels staged. Savage’s technique works better alongside Sam and Katherine; with a little more zhuzh, their love story might have saved this otherwise formless exercise.
Close to You
Rated R for language. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. In theaters.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
